Michael Hillary was the most famous pirate to come out of Plumpudding, Lanchestire-on-Green, England. He was so famous there’s a poop-laden statue of him in the commons. The rest of the world knows him as, “Who?”.

On his first raid he took a merchant ship. True to the image of piracy, Hillary put his sword in his mouth and jumped to the captured ship. He landed poorly, cutting himself badly. His mouth ran all the way to the back of his neck. He told the other captain that he was the famous Hillary the Pirate. The other captain replied that he couldn’t make out what Hillary was saying.

Hillary spit out all the blood and repeated himself.

“Sir, I’ve no intention of surrendering my ship to one man”, the captain told Hillary.

“I have a large crew of pirates. Surrender or die, swine!”.

The other captain slapped Hillary’s mouth.

“It’s just you and don’t call me swine”.

Hillary looked over at his ship. His pirates were all standing around staring at their shoes, those who had them, or looking at the clouds and talking about what they looked like. They weren’t boarding this captured ship.

Hillary stayed in his cabin for days brooding. He had to have ten pieces of fish for his dinner since most of it fell out of the side of his new mouth. Drinking was a problem for sure. Talking was too. Sometimes, when he yawned, his head would fall to his back and he’d have to reach behind him and push it forward. All of this put him in a foul mood. Woe to the next ship he captured!

The next ship was the H.M.S. Buttkicker. After carefully tossing his sword onto the deck of the Buttkicker, Hillary jumped aboard. He slipped and slid on the deck, hitting the sword and earning an additional nickname, Halfbutt. This time his pirates had come aboard with him. They fell down laughing. The crew of the Buttkicker also fell down laughing. Hillary was already down. The Buttkicker’s captain, Sir Rost-Rye-Mayo, was the only one left standing. Under the rules, he won.

He decided not to put Hillary in irons or hang him. He let him go. He figured the entertainment value was worth it. Putting him in irons meant feeding him until they got back to England for the hanging. The captain thought having this fool on board would not be a smart idea. They might not make it back to England.

Hillary’s arm went when his galley slave decided to slice his meat into small pieces in hopes Hillary could sort of suck them in. He sliced just as Hillary reached to pick up a piece. Hillary lost his leg when one of his pirates decided to close the gap between the two ships at another capture. Good idea except that Hillary was climbing between the two at the time.

He ended up with a pegleg and termites.